Dengue fever figures in East Java regency

The Jakarta Post | Tue, 01/12/2010 9:41 AM | National

The local administration in Jember regency, East Java, has recorded a total of 141 cases of dengue fever in the first 11 days of the new year and say the number may increase in the coming weeks.

“Usually, the number peaks between January and February at the height of the wet season,” Yumarlis, spokesman of the local health agency, told tempointeraktif.com Tuesday.

He said that the Aedes Aegypti mosquito population rose and reached its peak during the wet season, when the number of areas covered with stagnant water increased and became a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Last year, 962 people in the regency contracted the fever and five of them died.